May 26, 2007 - 4th round

Keira's counts came back and are looking good enough to proceed with her next round of chemo. We will have to recheck them on Tuesday, but as long as nothing drastically changes between then and now, she will begin her 4th round this coming Wednesday.
This is a special round. It is her last scheduled round of chemo before she gets imaged again. In about a month, we will finally know whether or not the chemo has been working all this time. Please keep her in your prayers for this last round, especially the first day, which is very long (9 hours or so in the hospital) and consequently very rough on Keira and mom and dad.

Her hair is no longer falling out : ) She is basically sleeping through the night again. She sometimes gets up and has 1 bottle, but last night she made it all the way until 6:30 am. She is having pretty good days as well. Considering everything, we could not ask for a better experience for Keira. The doctors told us from the beginning how well children can handle this compared with adults and Keira is living proof of that.

Since the last post, she has yet to walk, but is cruising very well. Her ability to adapt her sign language is really cool. We taught her the sign for all finished, so we would know when she was done eating. She uses it for that, but she also uses it to tell us when she has no more food on her tray. She will finish her meat and then give us the sign for all finished, which does not mean get me down, but "I have no more meat." She also learned the sign for please a few days back. However, it only kind of means please. It is also like an anger management technique : ) When she can't get something open, she turns her palms up, makes a tight fist and shakes her whole body while growling. It is sort funny and cute, but since we should not laugh at her frustration (you would too if you saw her - it is so adorable), we taught her to say please. Now when she gets really mad, we say, "No, Keira. Say please." And she then rubs her chest instead of doing her little angry shaking thing.

We continue to hold on and believe and look forward to seeing what God will do. Please continue to seek the Lord on her behalf and thank you all for the occasional emails. They still encourage and inspire us as we go through this trial in our lives.

Jason, Erin & Keira